Clues
by Crysania
Summary: Takes place after the most recent episode (3x13)...the idea came from an Anonymous post on Tumblr that "[Rumplestiltskin] might leave clues for her and everyone else to find so they know he's alive." (Written post 3x13)


The first thing she finds is his cane. She hasn't seen it since she left him in the shop, alone with Peter Pan. It had been left standing against the counter there, a testament to times gone past. She had asked him, that day when everything went to hell, why he still carried it with him. His only answer was that it was a _reminder_.

Today it's a reminder of everything raw and painful, of her loss. She remembers his walking with it, using it to support a leg that had been damaged centuries ago. Damaged by _himself_, she remembers. He had told her, once, that it was the start of all his troubles, that he had done it to get back to Bae, to make sure his son did not grow up fatherless. She well remembers the ogres, the screams of the dying, the wounded who returned from the battles missing limbs and eyes. She understood. And Rumplestiltskin had been humbled by her understanding.

Somehow the cane had been left in the foyer of his home. She's been staying there since the new curse was cast. When she awakened, she had found herself in the bed they had shared, her memories of his sacrifice still so new that she could barely process them. She knew she was supposed to be home, back in the Enchanted Forest. Instead she is here. In _his_ home. But without her love it is a cold and unlovely place.

She removes the cane from the foyer and leaves the house, carrying it along with her. Someone has put it there and she'll find out who. She goes to Neal first. He's been living on the outskirts of town with Robin Hood and his men. They're trying to keep people from leaving, trying to protect the residents. People have been disappearing and they're afraid for everyone in town. Neal is the only one she can think of who would have access to Rumplestiltskin's house and even think of the cane.

When she arrives, tired from the long walk into the wood, wishing she had worn something a bit more practical than the high-heeled shoes she prefers in this world, she is greeted with hugs and chatter and she realizes she feels more at home here than at the empty house. Here there are no reminders about a future she will never have.

She holds the cane out toward Neal and watches as his eyebrows rise in what she can only assume is surprise. "Then you didn't put it back in his house?"

"Why would I do that?"

Belle watches him for a moment, eyes narrowed, and realizes he's telling the truth. Neal is not one for falsehoods and lies. He is not a manipulator, not like his father. He's honest, almost to a fault, though he does have his father's temper and flare for the dramatic on occasion.

She shakes her head. "I don't know. It was in the foyer when I arrived home."

Robin Hood and his men are also not guilty of placing it there. All give her looks of sympathy and understanding. Robin Hood puts an arm around her and tells her that he lost his wife and reminds her that he's always there in case she needs to talk. He's one of the few people who doesn't discount her due to who she loves. Which is ironic, really, as Robin Hood is the one he once tortured. Apparently sparing his life means Robin Hood has granted him full acceptance. She only wishes that Rumplestiltskin were here to experience it. He's not used to people accepting him. He's always on the outside looking in and even when included he feels a bit like the outcast. Only now, with his death, have people come to do more than simply tolerate him.

She thanks him and returns to Rumplestiltskin's home, _her_ home, alone. The cane is left sitting in the foyer, forever a reminder of her lost love. Over the coming days, it will become a bit of a charm for her, something she must touch on her way through the door. It's hard seeing it, hard remembering, but she never wants to forget.

It was true love, after all.

She finds the cup next, sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. She never spent much time with Rumplestiltskin there. It wasn't _their_ place really. It was _his_ place. She was an unmitigated disaster in the kitchen. She usually spent time with him in the living room, the dining room, the bedroom…she blushes on the last one, remembers their time spent there. But the sadness takes her soon after, remembering she'll never feel the touch of his hands again, never get to run her fingers through his hair, never feel his lips and teeth and tongue on her. She doesn't think she'll ever experience such joy again.

The cup, like the cane, had been tucked out of sight. She had hidden it in a cupboard in the living room, placed behind some other knick-knacks so she wouldn't see it regularly. And yet there it sits, an innocent little tea cup placed right in the middle of the table she finds herself using more these days.

Only two people in the town know of the cup. She's guarded it jealously. Only one person has gotten close enough to her to know of the cup and its symbol in her life. And only one person had dragged that information out of her love.

She goes to Ariel first. If Ariel had broken in, taken it out, it was only because she cared for Belle. Ariel was kind. She wasn't the type to hurt. And so she hopes it was her doing. Perhaps she was behind the cane as well, though she didn't believe that. Ariel had never seen her love with the cane, had no memories of his being Mr. Gold. She was sure she hadn't met him in the last flurry of hours before their world came crashing down.

But Ariel knew the cup.

"I remember this," Ariel says when she approaches her with it, reaching out to lightly touch one finger to the chip in the rim of the cup. "With the strength of your love…I do. I remember." The smile she gives Belle is sad and a little bit wistful. Ariel has her love. He's even quit working on the docks, quit the job that so horrified the mermaid. It was a huge step. Belle knows they'll get married soon and the wedding will be lovely.

"Did you leave this on my table?"

Ariel's blank look tells her all she needs to know. Ariel is guileless. She is perhaps the most honest person Belle knows and she thinks this is partially because Ariel wouldn't _know_ how to lie. She wonders in that moment if that's a part of being a mermaid or if that's just Ariel's personality. Perhaps someday she'll have to ask her that.

But not now. Now is not the time.

There's only one other person who would understand the significance of their cup. She doesn't want to face her, but she has to. She could see her trying to find some way to torment her, some way to remind her of what she's lost. She had kept her imprisoned for so long that Belle lost track of those years in her memory. And then, when she had finally regained _herself_, she had imprisoned her body in another woman's mind.

She knocks on the door to the mayor's mansion. It appears that in this new cursed world, Regina is still the mayor. And the pawn shop, owned by her beloved, is dark. Always so dark. She has yet to get up the nerve to go back. It was the last place she'd touched him, putting her hand gently on his shoulder as she left him to his fate.

She regrets that.

She will probably always regret it.

Regina opens the door and looks down on her. Most people look down on Belle, even in her heels. But Regina has this _way _about her, this way of looking at her as if she were little more than an insignificant bug. "Can I help you?"

Belle holds up the cup. She can't quite find it within herself to speak. This woman still lives. This woman, who took so much from her, from others in the town, who had cursed them all to a miserable existence and torn their lives apart. She _lives_. While her love made the ultimate sacrifice.

No one talks about it. She wonders if they ever did during the missing year. Was there a memorial service for him? Did anyone tell her how very sorry they were for her loss? Did anyone even _care_? Those questions had gone around and around in her mind ever since she woke up in Rumplestiltskin's pink (_salmon, dear_) house, back in the cursed town she had come to hate.

"Did you do it?" Belle asks Regina. Simple words. The only words she can force past the lump in her throat.

"Do _what_?" Regina's voice is laced with annoyance.

"_This_." Belle holds the cup up more forcefully, shoving it right under the other woman's nose. "This was hidden. And yet I come home to find it on my kitchen table." She hates the way her voice is turning shrill but she's so _tired_ and so _angry_.

"Why would I do that?"

"You're the only one in town who knows about this cup." Her voice goes higher in her rage and she presses her lips together. She will not cry. She will not back down. Rumplestiltskin once told her that Regina had stolen the cup and traded it back for his name.

"Well, I can assure you that I had nothing to do with it." Regina backs up a pace. "Now good day, Miss French." She starts to shut the door when Belle puts out a hand to stop her.

"I _hate_ that name." The words are said on a hiss. And then she releases the door, allows Regina to shut it, finds some sort of internal amusement from the shocked look on the other woman's face. Did she never realize? Her name is not Belle French. It's certainly not _Lacey_ French. Surely by now Regina must realize she doesn't like her memories being played with, her name being altered. She had spoken up at the town meeting, had brought up memories. She had done it for a _reason_. To remind her, to let her never forget. Belle is not one to punish people outright. But she needs this woman to remember what she's done to her.

She leaves Regina's feeling somewhat dejected. And confused. There is no one else she can think of who would know about the cup. She is not close with anyone else. She never told Ruby, back in those days before her hospital stay. She had spoken to Snow and to Emma, but neither was someone she would speak to about her relationship with Rumplestiltskin.

If she had spoken of the cup to anyone else, back during their missing year, they would not remember.

So there is no one. The cup has simply appeared. Perhaps there is some of Rumplestiltskin's' magic left in his house, remnants of a time now long gone.

She retreats to the house, hides the cup back where it belongs, and curls up on the sofa. She's not ready to face the empty bedroom with its half made bed and pillows with only one indentation. The sofa seems safer somehow.

It's later that night that she wakes up. Something disturbs her sleep but she's not sure _what_. It's an unsettling feeling, being sure you've heard something and yet knowing you're alone in the house. She remembers feeling that way the first night alone in the apartment above the abandoned library. It was so quiet. Too quiet, after her nights with Rumplestiltskin, talking and making love until the wee hours of the morning.

The stillness is again bothering her, but this time more so. She's sure there's someone there, in the house, hidden. "Hello?" Her voice is hesitant as she creeps out of the bed.

She remembers doing this once, remembers putting on her slippers, and sliding soundlessly through the house. She does this again, retracing the steps she took so long ago. A lifetime ago it seems. Before Rumplestiltskin was willing to open up to her. Before he was willing to _try_. For both their sakes.

Now she follows that same path, a robe wrapped around the ratty old pajamas she has started to favor since this new curse was enacted. Who is there to see her frilly underthings? Who is there to appreciate how they frame her body? No one. Not anymore. And so she leans more toward comfort this time around.

In a way she's thankful. When she curls up to sleep, she is wrapped in flannel and cotton that is soft and warm against her skin. It helps her sleep when sleep does not come easily.

She finds herself outside in the garden before she can really contemplate the intelligence of stepping out into the dark when she's worried there could be an intruder. But she cannot help herself. She is drawn to that same basement window, as if she has to reenact that scene from so long ago.

The lights are on in the basement. She starts at realizing that. She hasn't been down there. She's _never_ been down there. But the lights have been turned on. They illuminate the spinning wheel that he keeps there, the same one she had once enjoyed watching him at in the Great Hall of the Dark Castle. The basement had been his workroom of sorts and she still can see the remnants of potions, the beakers.

And the gold.

_Gold?_

She knows he left none of that behind. He doesn't keep it with the wheel. She looks closely and realizes the basket is nearly full, the gold looped around the same way it always was when Rumplestiltskin spun.

She realizes then that the wheel is turning. Slowly. As if someone had just abandoned it. Without thinking she rushes back into the house, down the stairs and into the basement. The wheel has stopped turning by then and she whirls, looking around her. Was he there? Was it his ghost?

"Rumple?" She speaks his name softly and is not entirely surprised when there is no response. Only a rush of breeze greets her and then even that is gone, leaving the room calm and still.

She reaches out a hand and touches the wheel. It's warm. The seat is also warm. Someone has just vacated the room. Someone has just left this wheel. Someone warm. Someone real. Someone _alive_.

There is only one person who could spin straw into gold. Her knees buckle beneath her and she sits at the wheel for a moment, feeling his presence, knowing he was _just_ there. She does not understand why he did not remain, why he left these breadcrumbs to lead her here. But she knows what she must do.

She calls the town meeting the next morning. Regina is taken aback that someone dare challenge her authority, but Emma was all too happy to get the town together. She doesn't ask what has Belle so excited, so nervous. And for that Belle is thankful.

She doesn't know how the town will react. Few have murmured meaningless platitudes to her when they happen upon her at the diner or the library. Most simply walk past her, eyes downcast, faces turned away. She feels a bit like the town pariah sometimes, but she's stopped being concerned about what the rest of the town thinks of her. They'll come to know her…eventually.

But now this. She's afraid there will be an uproar. She's afraid they'll blame him. She's afraid there will be a real old fashioned witch hunt with torches and pitchforks and angry voices. But all she really wants from the town is for someone to stand up and say _we should find him_ because he sacrificed himself, because despite their misgivings and mistrust he is a _good man_.

When she steps to the front of the room, all eyes are on her. Archie is beaming. Grumpy gives her his best attempt at a smile. Granny looks suspicious but she usually does these days. Ruby gives her a thumbs up.

Belle takes a deep breath and unwinds the gold thread she's been carrying. She holds it up and as the light hits it, as all eyes stare wordlessly at it, Belle makes her announcement.

"Rumplestiltslin is alive."


End file.
